Eye-on-Retail Daily Tipsheet Archives

It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere—Unless You’ve Been Acquired by Wal-Mart by Sarah Nassauer & Brian Baskin at Wall Street Journal via Fortune. “Those moves backfired. According to the Journal, Jet executives complained that fewer employees were attending happy hour after it was moved off-site. To its credit, Walmart reversed its stance, allowing happy hour to return to the Jet office and loosening similar restrictions on other recently-acquired startups.”Read more | WSJ article (subs.)

With its ‘endless aisle’ Walmart Canada takes another swipe at Amazon by Hollie Shaw at Financial Post. “If you own the centre of the plate, there is a halo effect,” (CEO Tappenden) said. “If people are willing to buy meat from you, they are likely to have trust on produce, trust in grocery, trust on laundry. (Meat) is the hardest one to get trust on.”Read more

Ex-Sam’s Club CEO offers advice at 2017 Women’s Leadership Forum by Jessica Saunders at Atlanta Business Chronicle. “About 400 women crowded into the ballroom of the Cobb Galleria Centre to hear Brewer kick off the 2017 Women’s Leadership Forum with a keynote address Friday morning…”Read more/Pics

Gymboree’s lenders working on comeback strategy for retailer by Josh Kosman at NY Post. “They are nearly done restructuring the leases for the 900 stores that will remain open, and believe the new leases will save the company $20 million a year, according to a source. “Tenants right now have a lot of leverage,” the source said, adding that Gymboree is closing roughly 400 stores.”Read more

Jeff Bezos says Amazon will ‘keep investing’ in India as rivals raise new war chests by Jon Russell at TechCrunch. “Bezos went public with his continued commitment to the country in a tweet that followed a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington.”Read more

…Top US Business Leaders Who Attended the Roundtable (McMillon, Cook, Bezos) via The Economic Times.List

A street fight among grocers to deliver your milk, eggs, bananas by Rachel Abrams at NY Times via CNBC. “…When he asks for directions, the man working at the service entrance yells at him: “You don’t know, you should tell me you don’t know!” But rudeness, Mr. Browne says, is just one of the things he has to deal with. He’s still got to get in and out, in and out. Nineteen stops to go.”Read more

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The New Model of Lowe’s Stores Opens in Canada “…designed by taking the best of Lowe’s and RONA’s offering, to create the new model of Lowe’s stores.”Press release

Wal-Mart closing dazes Arkansas town by Robbie Neiswanger at Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. “I think it’s a shame Wal-Mart is leaving,” (Mayor) Cherry said. “I’m just personally hurt. I didn’t like it when Wal-Mart moved in here. I had a small business at that time, and it hurt us. It put a lot of Waldron businesses out of business.”Read more

Barney’s New York is stocking a ‘paper clip’ for $180 at Daily Mail.Read more

Large Harvard Study Adds to Evidence That Chocolate Could Have Heart Health Benefits by Sy Mukherjee at Fortune. “The analysis conducted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Danish scientists involved more than 55,500 people. Those who ate two to six servings per week had a 20% lower chance of the irregular heartbeats.”Read more

Amazon Robots Poised to Revamp How Whole Foods Runs Warehouses by Spencer Soper & Alex Sherman at Bloomberg. “In negotiations, Amazon spent a lot of time analyzing Whole Foods’ distribution technology, pointing to a possible way in which the company sees the most immediate opportunities to reduce costs, said a person familiar with the matter.”Read more

Watch: Confirmed tornado rips through Home Depot parking lot in New Jersey at Philly Enquirer.Video

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